{"id":125248,"date":"2025-07-02T13:02:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T21:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/07\/02\/barbri-wants-you-to-know-theyre-not-just-for-bar-exams-anymore\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T13:02:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T21:02:27","slug":"barbri-wants-you-to-know-theyre-not-just-for-bar-exams-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/07\/02\/barbri-wants-you-to-know-theyre-not-just-for-bar-exams-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"BARBRI Wants You To Know They\u2019re Not Just For Bar Exams Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Play free-association with an attorney and the word \u201cBARBRI\u201d likely draws a Pavlovian wince and a bad joke about the UCC. During that window between law school and practice, bar prep courses become your only window onto the world. After it\u2019s over, you remember the key takeaways about \u201chearsay exceptions,\u201d or \u201cadverse possession,\u201d or \u201cthe history of Penne alla Vodka,\u201d but we more or less move on from our relationship with the company that put all that into our heads.<\/p>\n

But that may be a mistake. <\/p>\n

The Instant Pot\u2019s manufacturer filed for bankruptcy. Jarring transition, I know, but stick with me. The culprit, as always, was a bunch of private equity leeches. But the fundamental issue with the Instant Pot that drove its owners to make a mess of the company was the product was too good<\/a>. People got one pot at their wedding shower that would last them their whole lives. Other than men having to buy a new one after the inevitable divorce, there wasn\u2019t really a growth strategy. What they needed and could never pull together was another offering.<\/p>\n

BARBRI isn\u2019t following the Instant Pot model. Through acquisitions and expanded offerings, the company is branching out from coaching prospective lawyers through the bar exam into coaching lawyers throughout their career. Law school, in-house training, CLEs, and even AI readiness (because it\u2019s 2025). BARBRI for Professionals<\/a> aims to bring the BARBRI touch to the whole lifecycle of the practice.<\/p>\n

If they could help you remember the Rule Against Perpetuities enough to joke about it for the rest of your life, then why not leverage that talent for practical education into the job itself. Who is going to train first-year associates in an AI-infused landscape to provide actual insight<\/em> once firms can no longer justify keeping people on board to churn on brute force tasks? Probably not the octogenarian partner. Even if the firm has its own training materials, BARBRI can come in and customize that material and make it stick the way they\u2019ve successfully made obscure bar exam lessons stick.<\/p>\n

Justin Hummel, BARBRI\u2019s VP of Product for Professional Education, laid out the strategy to bring BARBRI\u2019s expertise to more legal professionals built on expanding its tentacles into LSAT prep, acquiring the old West Academic empire, eDiscovery specialist training, CLE, and paralegal courses. With SkillBurst, BARBRI\u2019s digital learning subsidiary, they can deliver education right to the busy audience \u201cin meaningful, salient, single source solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Training is increasingly relevant as the lateral market builds a more fluid profession (or \u201cmercenary\u201d depending on your feelings about it). Firms pride themselves on having a \u201cway we do things\u201d and while a lot of that is pretentious faith that their firm is a special snowflake that does work differently than everyone else, there actually are a lot of often unspoken nuances in how a firm works. Add in AI tools threatening to upend the whole nature of junior associate work, and \u201ctraining\u201d isn\u2019t an HR line item as much as a survival tactic.<\/p>\n

Barring a total AI collapse, the whole nature of hiring will change over the next few years. Firms can\u2019t justify keeping warm bodies at the bottom of the pyramid scheme if they can\u2019t find a way to leverage them into billable work and AI promises to soak up many of the traditional chores of a junior. Spinning up future juniors into a full billable resource in this landscape presents a challenge law firms haven\u2019t really faced before.<\/p>\n

Which is why a name that lawyers remember from their most desperate hour of learning is swooping in.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post BARBRI Wants You To Know They\u2019re Not Just For Bar Exams Anymore<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Play free-association with an attorney and the word \u201cBARBRI\u201d likely draws a Pavlovian wince and a bad joke about the UCC. During that window between law school and practice, bar prep courses become your only window onto the world. After it\u2019s over, you remember the key takeaways about \u201chearsay exceptions,\u201d or \u201cadverse possession,\u201d or \u201cthe history of Penne alla Vodka,\u201d but we more or less move on from our relationship with the company that put all that into our heads.<\/p>\n

But that may be a mistake. <\/p>\n

The Instant Pot\u2019s manufacturer filed for bankruptcy. Jarring transition, I know, but stick with me. The culprit, as always, was a bunch of private equity leeches. But the fundamental issue with the Instant Pot that drove its owners to make a mess of the company was the product was too good<\/a>. People got one pot at their wedding shower that would last them their whole lives. Other than men having to buy a new one after the inevitable divorce, there wasn\u2019t really a growth strategy. What they needed and could never pull together was another offering.<\/p>\n

BARBRI isn\u2019t following the Instant Pot model. Through acquisitions and expanded offerings, the company is branching out from coaching prospective lawyers through the bar exam into coaching lawyers throughout their career. Law school, in-house training, CLEs, and even AI readiness (because it\u2019s 2025). BARBRI for Professionals<\/a> aims to bring the BARBRI touch to the whole lifecycle of the practice.<\/p>\n

If they could help you remember the Rule Against Perpetuities enough to joke about it for the rest of your life, then why not leverage that talent for practical education into the job itself. Who is going to train first-year associates in an AI-infused landscape to provide actual insight<\/em> once firms can no longer justify keeping people on board to churn on brute force tasks? Probably not the octogenarian partner. Even if the firm has its own training materials, BARBRI can come in and customize that material and make it stick the way they\u2019ve successfully made obscure bar exam lessons stick.<\/p>\n

Justin Hummel, BARBRI\u2019s VP of Product for Professional Education, laid out the strategy to bring BARBRI\u2019s expertise to more legal professionals built on expanding its tentacles into LSAT prep, acquiring the old West Academic empire, eDiscovery specialist training, CLE, and paralegal courses. With SkillBurst, BARBRI\u2019s digital learning subsidiary, they can deliver education right to the busy audience \u201cin meaningful, salient, single source solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Training is increasingly relevant as the lateral market builds a more fluid profession (or \u201cmercenary\u201d depending on your feelings about it). Firms pride themselves on having a \u201cway we do things\u201d and while a lot of that is pretentious faith that their firm is a special snowflake that does work differently than everyone else, there actually are a lot of often unspoken nuances in how a firm works. Add in AI tools threatening to upend the whole nature of junior associate work, and \u201ctraining\u201d isn\u2019t an HR line item as much as a survival tactic.<\/p>\n

Barring a total AI collapse, the whole nature of hiring will change over the next few years. Firms can\u2019t justify keeping warm bodies at the bottom of the pyramid scheme if they can\u2019t find a way to leverage them into billable work and AI promises to soak up many of the traditional chores of a junior. Spinning up future juniors into a full billable resource in this landscape presents a challenge law firms haven\u2019t really faced before.<\/p>\n

Which is why a name that lawyers remember from their most desperate hour of learning is swooping in.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Play free-association with an attorney and the word \u201cBARBRI\u201d likely draws a Pavlovian wince and a bad joke about the UCC. During that window between law school and practice, bar prep courses become your only window onto the world. After it\u2019s over, you remember the key takeaways about \u201chearsay exceptions,\u201d or \u201cadverse possession,\u201d or \u201cthe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Headshot-300x200-mKjMcf.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}